Controlling a crowd of multiple mobile station devices

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus of communicating with multiple mobile station devices in a concerted effort is disclosed. According to one example method of operation content is provided to multiple mobile station devices in a pre-defined venue location. The method may also provide identifying the mobile station devices as being present at the pre-defined venue location via a server and initiating an application on the server that establishes a customized content delivery function utilized to deliver customized content to each of the identified mobile station devices. A command may be triggered to begin transmitting the customized content to each of the mobile station devices at a predetermined time and the customized content may be transmitted to each of the mobile station devices responsive to receiving the trigger command.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation from U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/482,555, filed May 29, 2012, entitled “CONTROLLING A CROWD OFMULTIPLE MOBILE STATION DEVICES”, which is incorporated by referenceherein in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to the control of multiple mobile stationsdevices that are located in a crowd and more particularly tocommunicating with mobile station users via their mobile station devicesduring a live event.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Conventionally, live events such as football games, concerts, lectures,etc., have always sought to capture the attention of the audience. Anaudience full of potential consumers experiencing a moment of excitementand connection to the live event or on-stage performer will likelypurchase souvenir items, concessions items, presenter materials (e.g.,books, CD's, DVD's, etc.) or any other services or products that attracttheir interest.

In one example, audience members of a live music concert often timespurchase t-shirts, compact discs (CDs) and other recommended items fromthe performer(s). Essentially, performers seek to draw a crowd not justfor ticket purchase prices but to connect with them in a way thatassists the future sale of records or other items that generate profits.

The live event industry is always seeking new ways to establish astronger bond and personal connection with individuals through a uniqueand personalized experience. Currently, the majority of attendees carrymobile devices (i.e., smartphones, cell phones, tablet computingdevices, etc.) to the live event and are likely to interface with theirmobile devices before, during and after the event. By taking activemeasures to engage the audience members through their mobile devices aswell as through live on-stage activity, the purchasing habits of thoseattendees may increase significantly.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

One embodiment of the present invention may include a method ofproviding content to a plurality of mobile station devices in apre-defined venue location. The method may include identifying theplurality of mobile station devices as being present at the pre-definedvenue location via a server and initiating an application on the serverthat establishes a customized content delivery function utilized todeliver customized content to each of the identified plurality of mobilestation devices. The method may also include receiving a trigger commandto transmit the customized content to each of the plurality of mobilestation devices at a predetermined time and transmitting the customizedcontent to each of the plurality of mobile station devices responsive toreceiving the trigger command.

According to another example embodiment an apparatus may be configuredto provide content to a plurality of mobile station devices in apre-defined venue location. The apparatus may include a processorconfigured to identify the plurality of mobile station devices as beingpresent at the pre-defined venue location and initiate an application onthe server that establishes a customized content delivery functionutilized to deliver customized content to each of the identifiedplurality of mobile station devices. The apparatus may also include areceiver configured to receive a trigger command to transmit thecustomized content to each of the plurality of mobile station devices ata predetermined time, and a transmitter configured to transmit thecustomized content to each of the plurality of mobile station devicesresponsive to receiving the trigger command.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A illustrates an example logic communication diagram of mobilestation interaction during a live event, according to exampleembodiments.

FIG. 1B illustrates a detailed communication diagram of mobile stationinteraction during a live event, according to example embodiments.

FIG. 2A illustrates an example crowd control example of providingcontent to mobile station users during a live event.

FIG. 2B illustrates another example crowd control example of providingcontent to mobile station users during a live event.

FIG. 2C illustrates still another example crowd control example ofproviding content to mobile station users during a live event.

FIG. 2D illustrates another example of a classroom environment providingfeedback to their instructor via interaction with their mobile stations.

FIG. 2E illustrates an example mobile station user interface used toreceive live feedback during a concert.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example crowd control communication systemconfiguration according to example embodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates a network entity that may include memory, softwarecode and other computer processing hardware used to perform variousoperations according to example embodiments.

FIG. 5A illustrates a flow diagram of an example method of operation.

FIG. 5B illustrates a flow diagram of another example method ofoperation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It will be readily understood that the components of the presentinvention, as generally described and illustrated in the figures herein,may be arranged and designed in a wide variety of differentconfigurations. Thus, the following detailed description of theembodiments of a method, apparatus, and system, as represented in theattached figures, is not intended to limit the scope of the invention asclaimed, but is merely representative of selected embodiments of theinvention.

The features, structures, or characteristics of the invention describedthroughout this specification may be combined in any suitable manner inone or more embodiments. For example, the usage of the phrases “exampleembodiments”, “some embodiments”, or other similar language, throughoutthis specification refers to the fact that a particular feature,structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodimentmay be included in at least one embodiment of the present invention.Thus, appearances of the phrases “example embodiments”, “in someembodiments”, “in other embodiments”, or other similar language,throughout this specification do not necessarily all refer to the samegroup of embodiments, and the described features, structures, orcharacteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or moreembodiments.

In addition, while the term “message” has been used in the descriptionof embodiments of the present invention, the invention may be applied tomany types of network data, such as packet, frame, datagram, etc. Forpurposes of this invention, the term “message” also includes packet,frame, datagram, and any equivalents thereof. Furthermore, while certaintypes of messages and signaling are depicted in exemplary embodiments ofthe invention, the invention is not limited to a certain type ofmessage, and the invention is not limited to a certain type ofsignaling.

Example embodiments provide a device, system, method and/or computerprogram configured to provide a set of procedures/protocols used tocreate an interactive experience for members of a crowd through the useof their personal electronic devices (i.e. mobile devices). Theelectronic device is typically a cell phone or tablet or other mobileelectronic device that include wireless radio communicationscapabilities, such as WIFI, and/or any other data radio services, suchas 3^(rd)/4^(th) generation communications (i.e., 3G, 4G, long-termevolution (LTE) technologies used by commercial mobile radio service(CMRS) carriers).

The communication service may be offered via various differentapplication functions installed as a mobile application on the user'smobile station. The mobile station device may be a computer, laptop,mobile, wireless or cellular phone, a PDA, a table, a client a server orany device that contains a processor and/or memory, whether thatprocessor or memory performs a function related to an embodiment of theinvention. According to the example embodiments, there are five majormodes of operation available, such as many-to-many, one-to-many,many-to-one, one-to-one, and a server-less interactive mode. Examples ofone or more of these types of interactions are described below.

According to a first mode of operation a one-to-one mode type ofoperation may provide the mobile station application being used by aconsumer to select a purchase of some service or product. For example,the audience members of a live performance may be desiring to purchaseitems that are based on whatever the audience is attending or watching.In turn, this type of situation permits the live performance to increasethe user's buying habits while at the same time, providing them with aunique service with personalized content stored on their mobile deviceenabled by the application.

Example embodiments may provide a unique, interactive experience forindividuals in a crowd setting via an application on their mobilestations. The application has multiple uses when used both individuallyand/or within live crowd settings of other mobile stations. The mobilestations may have a user interface screen and a WIFI or other 3G/4G/LTEwireless radio mobile connection to an application server, base stationor wireless access point, which is able to identify and track thedevice's location within a given perimeter, such as a building or arenavia a location based technology (i.e., local power estimation,triangulation, GPS, coordinate registration, etc.). By maintaining adatabase of 2D and/or 3D coordinate axis locations of the device, theapplication server is able to use the wireless connection to change thescreen appearance and/or color on the mobile station device. In thismanner, each device screen is used much the same as a single pixel ormultiple pixels of light would be used in an LCD monitor.

FIG. 1A illustrates an example logic communication diagram 100 of mobilestation interaction during a live event, according to exampleembodiments. Referring to FIG. 1A, a user or future member of theaudience 130 may be in operation of his or her mobile station device132. In operation, a pre-event procedure may include a user 130registering for an event with a manual entry of a particular seatlocation and event date. The user will purchase a ticket to the upcomingevent through any on-line ticket sales outlet via a computer, phone orvia the mobile station 132. The user may be optionally directed to themobile application store 120 to download the mobile device applicationsoftware. Once selected by the user, the exact seat location informationfor the purchased event tickets are then transmitted from the ticketingagent 140 to the server 150 and corresponding application 152, whichlogs the user's information, including mobile station identifier, username, seat location, event date, etc., in a location database 154. Thesetup procedure may be performed autonomously with little or no userinteraction, or upon the user agreeing to attend an event withoutrequiring any additional information from the user.

FIG. 1B illustrates a detailed communication diagram of mobile stationinteraction during a live event 160, according to example embodiments.Referring to FIG. 1B, once the event date has matured and the user ispresent at the event, the mobile application may be launchedautomatically based on a known location or time frame of the mobilestation. The mobile application may enact the mobile station 132 toconnect to the local WIFI access point 170 and correspondingcommunication service in the venue and automatically register to theapplication server 150. The server application 152 validates eachregistered devices' seat location based on pre-stored registered userinformation 156 and/or location information stored in database 154,which allows for the user to manually enter or select their specificlocation from a seating chart displayed on the screen of their device.The user's location may be already known or may be determined based on alocation determination algorithm.

The server application 152 ensures each registered device has anassigned location in the arena and also ensures there are no duplicates.Additional validation of a location could be accomplished throughtriangulation on the WIFI network and/or GPS location information sensedfrom each device. The location information could be used to assignunknown locations for mobile station devices, or to determine how todeal with duplicate location situations (i.e., two customers identifiedas having the same seat assignment).

FIG. 2A illustrates an example crowd control example 200 of providingcontent to mobile station users during a live event. Referring to FIG.2A, a crowd of many mobile station users 210 are illustrated as beingcongregated in a common venue location. The server application 152 maypossess the capability to turn the screens of each of the mobilestations into points of light that are centrally controllable through asingle application. In large groups or crowd-like environments, such asa full arena at a concert, the individual points of light generated bythe mobile station are relatively close together and their locationswithin the confines of the arena may be identified by the seat/sectionnumber that the various mobile stations are located.

The X-Y plane 212/214 used to define the points of light (hereinafterreferred to as “mobile station pixels”), may have a basic structure thatmimics the common everyday flat panel monitor display. Depending on thecolor and intensity of each point of light generated by the mobilestation pixels, an unlimited set of images and moving images can bedisplayed. The crowd display will result in the crowd participants'mobile station display being illuminated based on a remote command(s)from the WIFI wireless access point 170. The various mobile stationpixels will provide the application with the capability to createimages, moving images, interactive games, etc. and other lightingeffects across the multi-human/multi-mobile station screen. A user mustbring his or her mobile station device in order to participate, however,now-a-days, most every concert participant has a smartphone or similardevice.

FIG. 2B illustrates another example crowd control example 250 ofproviding content to mobile station users during a live event. Accordingto another example of operation, a performer on stage during a liveperformance 260, an automated application installed on the user mobilestations 262 will access the server 150 and to receive content anddisplay full-color lighting effects on the screens of each mobile devicein the audience. Just as any digital monitor is a collection of pointsof light in a 2D grid (i.e., pixels), each mobile station in theaudience that is registered with the server application 152 will betreated as a wide-scale 2D grid display. However, most audience seatingconfigurations may include varying elevations (i.e., premier seating,middle concourse, upper-deck concourse, etc.), this may allow thedisplay application to also invoke three dimensional 3D effects.

According to one example, a strobe of white light may be flashed ontothe stage from the concert lighting, thereafter a flash of white lightmay be transmitted as a data message from the WIFI access point 170 ontothe screens of every mobile station registered with that application inthe audience. Next a blue flash, next a red flash, then a musical bandname and/or logo etc. In another example, a wave of green light mayemerge on each user's mobile station just long enough to create arolling “wave” effect that travels across the stage and on around thearena at a full 360 degrees on the screens of the mobile station and onany large displays reflecting the live content of the audience. Thetypes of lighting effects that be displayed on these mobile pixel pointsin the audience are infinite and may be any type of image that couldnormally be displayed on a digital monitor.

The individual screens of each audience members' devices make up a largedigital monitor with each device being treated as a single pixel oflight. The server application 152 registered with each mobile station262 may act as a large video driver to determine which pixel (device)displays what color and at what time. In practice, the crowd displaysmay be images that have been mapped onto various devices according totheir respective locations via a mapping table that includes, mobilestation identifier, mobile station location, image color at a particularpixel, image intensity, image duration, etc.

FIG. 2C illustrates still another example crowd control example 270 ofproviding content to mobile station users during a live event. Referringto FIG. 2C, like identifiers refer to like elements with respect toother drawings. The mobile stations 262 are registered with the serverapplication 152. In this example, the mobile stations are all situatedin a standard arena-style seating configuration and could play videogames with each other. For example, the legendary game of “Pong” may beplayed as a basic video game where a ball on the screens bounce back andforth between two paddles. The paddles may be controlled by opposingteams and the object is to bounce the ball off your paddle and back tothe other player. In a standard concert arena seating configuration,audience members are seated in a “U” shape. The paddles of the gamewould be generated at each end of the “U” on points of light on thescreens of mobile stations located at those seats.

The ball would bounce around between the paddles around the “U” shapedaudience wide-scale monitor as each audience member would be holding uptheir mobile station which was registered to the application. Paddleswould be controlled to move up or down by tracking the tilt sensors ofthe designated mobile stations at predefined locations (i.e.,accelerometers in the mobile stations of a selected number of audiencemembers who's mobile devices would control the movement of the paddles).

In a simpler example, the performer may initiate the kicking of a largebeach ball as illustrated in FIG. 2C. The virtual ball would roll acrossthe monitors of each of the users' mobile stations in a circular wavemotion that traverses the U-shaped seating venue. The virtual ball wouldbe initiated via an operation 290 by a game stored in the serverapplication 152. The ball would track the positions of the registeredand online mobile stations and perform a rolling motion once initiatedto include all participating mobile stations.

According to another example, crowd events may include camera shots onthe big screens near the front stage that are candid shots of certainmember(s) of the audience. Today, this practice is limited to cameraoperators seated around the arena who must find interesting shots andthen display them on the large monitors in the arena. According to anexample embodiment, the users are capable of using the videocapabilities of their mobile stations to shoot snippets of video intheir particular seating section submit them to a reviewer tied to theapplication who would review the video for appropriate content and queuethose snippets to be displayed on the large arena monitors. Thisembodiment enhances the audience member's participation in the event asthey have a personal connection to the video that was shown to theentire audience.

Additional examples may include words or images that could be createdand scrolled across the human wide-scale screen. For example, gamescould be played, such as “Pong” that has paddles controlled byaccelerometer movement of the section of audience. Electric beach ball,which may include accelerometer movement used to bounce a colorful beachball through the audience. The ball could start on stage and be “batted”away on its first path across the virtual audience screen (See FIG. 2C).

Other examples may include generic crowd gatherings to include any eventwhere video replays on each person's individual screen that allows eachuser to select which video replay angle they want to view. The videoreplays are on-demand and therefore may not be viewable only when thescreen(s) in the arena provide the playback. Other examples includeraffles or any other type of random audience member selected for somespecific purpose including live audio. For example, the stage person(s)microphone may be connected to the speakers in every device. The usermay be able to store what they are hearing automatically via the localand secure wireless connection to the server. The users may also beallowed to participate in surveys or trivia to keep the crowd calm inthe beginning of the concert or during an intermission. Also, livevoting may be used to see what the crowd really wants to see or hear(i.e., a question may be transmitted to the audience members on theirmobile stations “what song are you anticipating most before the concertis over, A, B or C . . . ?”). Yet another example may include a shortmessage service (SMS) interactive menu where the audience may submit aquestion to the speaker to see so the more popular questions may beanswered. Also products or services relating to the event at which theapplication is being used could be displayed on the user's device(“pre-order your concert t-shirt now and it will be sent to your house,avoid the lines!”). The user could accept messages and alerts at a latertime for marketing of other products or services.

FIG. 3 illustrates a mobile station crowd control system 300 accordingto example embodiments. Referring to FIG. 3, one example method ofoperation may include providing content to multiple mobile stationdevices in a pre-defined venue location. Within the system 300, mobilestation identification information may be pre-stored in a database 340and used for identifying the mobile station devices as being present atthe pre-defined venue location. An application may then be initiatedthat establishes a customized content delivery function utilized todeliver customized content to each of the identified plurality of mobilestation devices based on mobile station information retrieved from thedatabase 340 via the retrieval module 310. Once the application isenacted, a trigger command may be initiated to transmit the customizedcontent to each of the mobile station devices at a predetermined time.The mobile station information delivery module 320 determines whichdevices at which locations receives which content as part of a largerplan to make each of the mobile stations part of a giant virtual monitordisplay. Next, the customized content may be transmitted to each of themobile station devices responsive to receiving the trigger command viathe mobile station information delivery module 320. The feedbackreceived from the various mobile station devices may be stored in memoryand used for subsequent data transfers via the mobile stationinformation storage module 330.

Additional operations may include identifying the various mobile stationdevices as being present at the particular venue location bytransmitting a request for specific location information to each of theplurality of mobile station devices and receiving and storing thespecific location information in an application server database, such asthe mobile station identification information database 340. The specificlocation information may include any or more of a seat assignment,global positioning system (GPS) coordinates, and triangulation powerestimation signal information. The trigger command may include multipletrigger commands and the predetermined time may include a multipledifferent predetermined times, and each of the trigger commandsspecifies corresponding predetermined times to transmit the customizedcontent to each of the plurality of mobile station devices. In general,the mobile stations each will receive different content at differenttimes to produce a larger image requiring the cooperation of as manyparticipants as possible. For example, the predetermined times may bedifferent for each of the mobile station devices, and the customizedcontent delivered to each of the mobile station devices is different foreach of the mobile station devices. The predetermined venue location maybe a stage hall, sports arena, concert hall, classroom, etc.

FIG. 2D illustrates an example of a classroom environment according toexample embodiments. Referring to FIG. 2D, a group of students A throughP are identified via their mobile station devices. The students havedownloaded and installed an application on their mobile stations thatcommunicates with their instructor's application on his or her computerdevice 286. The teacher presentation 282 may be conducted in a classroomof students 284. The students may be enabled to enter questions, seeexamples and provide feedback via their mobile stations. Typically, alarge classroom may be full of students who are apprehensive aboutasking questions or confirming they understand a particular concept thatwas recently introduced by the instructor.

As new subject matter is introduced to the students, the professor mayinitiate a feedback request via his or her computer device 286. As aresult, the application may transmit the request to the WIFI wirelessaccess point 170, which in turn communicates with the server 150 toretrieve a predefined menu interface that is then forwarded to a list ofattending students who have logged into the application and are presentin the classroom. The message may be sent to each of the mobile stationsA-P indicating that feedback is required. The message may present to theusers “Does everyone understand the macroeconomic curve for supply anddemand that was just introduced?” As a result, the users may select abox, “YES” or “NO” and the answer would be submitted to the server 150 acompiled for a tally of results.

The results of the feedback would be presented to the instructor in anyformat to include user information, such as the student's name andresponse. In this example, students “A” and “F” have provided negativefeedback by selecting a sad face logo in response to the question asked.Among 16 students, only 2 of the students have provided negativefeedback as the rest of the students have selected a smiley face logo inresponse to the question asked by the instructor. The instructor'sapplication has calculated based on the feedback that 2 of thedissatisfied students among the entire 16 students yields 12.5% negativefeedback. The instructor may also view the students who have a problemas an added measure to decide whether to re-explain the subject matterof move forward and invite those with a problem to send an e-mail afterclass. Alternatively, the instructor may receive additional commentsregarding the problems being experienced by students “A” and “F” anddecide whether the questions are easy to answer or whether to instructthe students to follow-up after class.

FIG. 2E illustrates another example of receiving feedback from a largenumber of users via their mobile stations. Referring to FIG. 2E, theuser interface 290 for the audience question and feedback applicationmay include a voting feature where a first menu option appears on theuser's mobile station 292 to ask the user at a live concert whether theartist should close out a performance with a particular song (i.e.,options 1, 2 or 3). As a result, the user may touch the screen and votefor his or her favorite song. The application may then acknowledge theuser's input and provide a compilation of results 294 based on thefeedback from all users present at the current venue.

The users may be further identified by their profile informationregistered at the server 150. For example, the server 150 andcorresponding server application 152 may receive user specific inputparameters, such as name, age, sex, occupation, address, income level,etc. The server parameters may be received during a setup procedure thatthe audience registers by answering questions on their mobile stationapplication interfaces and sending the information to the applicationserver 152 to be compiled.

The server 150 may weigh each of these parameters to modify a votingresult. For instance, at a large venue, a particular performer orpresenter may elect to have a certain demographic be recognized as thepredominant customer of interest. As a result, the presenter ormoderator may have his or her preferences inputted into the feedbackapplication to offer the preferred audience demographic larger weightedresults than the other participating members. For example, if amotivational speaker has reason to believe that his or her preferreddemographic is persons aged 28-45 and having an income level between$75,000 and over, then the speaker may allow those persons feedbackmessages to be weighted 4 times more than the other members of theaudience. As a result, the feedback messages received are computed andprovided to the speaker in a manner that best suits their businessinterests.

In operation, the various users may be pre-registered or may registerupon accessing the application to provide the corresponding userinformation via their mobile stations. The plurality of mobile stationdevices may be communicating with a server and server application whichcalculates the results and feedback messages and provides them to amoderator device in a pre-defined venue location. The operations mayinclude identifying the mobile station devices as being present at thepre-defined venue location via a server and initiating an application onthe server that establishes a feedback menu display and transmitting thefeedback menu display to each of the identified mobile station devices.The server may then receive feedback messages from a majority of theplurality of mobile station devices responsive to the feedback menudisplay questions. The server may also process the feedback messages andprovide a result to a moderator device.

The feedback messages may include at least one selected option from thefeedback menu display that is provided to the user devices (i.e., vote,selection, etc.). The feedback messages may be received and processed bythe server which computes a percentage the selected options receivedamong a total number of the mobile station devices that received thefeedback menu display and provided responses. A request for specificlocation information may be transmitted to each of the mobile stationdevices, and the results may be received and stored as specific locationinformation in an application server database.

A most popular feedback decision from the majority of the plurality ofmobile station devices (i.e., “song two”, “yes” or “no”, “I want more”,“I don't understand”, etc.) may be identified and calculated based onthe total definite feedback decisions divided by the total number ofusers or mobile stations that received the feedback menu options (i.e.,questions requiring an answer). The server may then transmit a result tothe moderator device indicating the most popular feedback decision sothe moderator can know what the audience members are experiencing,desiring or feeling.

The operations of a method or algorithm described in connection with theembodiments disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in acomputer program executed by a processor, or in a combination of thetwo. A computer program may be embodied on a computer readable medium,such as a storage medium. For example, a computer program may reside inrandom access memory (“RAM”), flash memory, read-only memory (“ROM”),erasable programmable read-only memory (“EPROM”), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (“EEPROM”), registers, hard disk, aremovable disk, a compact disk read-only memory (“CD-ROM”), or any otherform of storage medium known in the art.

An exemplary storage medium may be coupled to the processor such thatthe processor may read information from, and write information to, thestorage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integralto the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in anapplication specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”). In the alternative,the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components.For example, FIG. 4 illustrates an example network element 400, whichmay represent any of the above-described network components of the otherfigures.

As illustrated in FIG. 4, a memory 410 and a processor 420 may bediscrete components of the network entity 400 that are used to executean application or set of operations. The application may be coded insoftware in a computer language understood by the processor 420, andstored in a computer readable medium, such as, the memory 410.Furthermore, a software module 430 may be another discrete entity thatis part of the network entity 400, and which contains softwareinstructions that may be executed by the processor 420. In addition tothe above noted components of the network entity 400, the network entity400 may also have a transmitter and receiver pair configured to receiveand transmit communication signals (not shown).

One example method of operation is illustrated in the flow diagram ofFIG. 5A. Referring to FIG. 5A, the method 500 provides content to aplurality of mobile station devices in a pre-defined venue location. Themethod may include identifying the plurality of mobile station devicesas being present at the pre-defined venue location via a server, atoperation 502. The method may also include initiating an application onthe server that establishes a customized content delivery functionutilized to deliver customized content to each of the identifiedplurality of mobile station devices, at operation 504. The method mayalso include receiving a trigger command to transmit the customizedcontent to each of the plurality of mobile station devices at apredetermined time, at operation 506 and transmitting the customizedcontent to each of the plurality of mobile station devices responsive toreceiving the trigger command at operation 508.

Another example method of operation is illustrated in the flow diagramof FIG. 5B. Referring to FIG. 5B, the method 550 provides communicatingbetween the plurality of mobile station devices and a moderator devicein a pre-defined venue location. The method may include identifying theplurality of mobile station devices as being present at the pre-definedvenue location via a server and initiating an application on the serverthat establishes a feedback menu display, at operation 552, transmittingthe feedback menu display to each of the identified plurality of mobilestation devices, at operation 554 and receiving feedback messages from amajority of the plurality of mobile station devices responsive to thefeedback menu display questions, at operation 554. The method may alsoinclude processing the feedback messages and providing a result to amoderator device.

Although an exemplary embodiment of the system, method, andnon-transitory computer readable medium of the present application hasbeen illustrated in the accompanied drawings and described in theforegoing detailed description, it will be understood that the presentinvention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is capable ofnumerous rearrangements, modifications, and substitutions withoutdeparting from the spirit or scope of the invention as set forth anddefined by the following claims. For example, the capabilities of thesystems illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 may be performed by one or more of themodules or components described herein or in a distributed architecture.For example, all or part of the functionality performed by theindividual modules, may be performed by one or more of these modules.Further, the functionality described herein may be performed at varioustimes and in relation to various events, internal or external to themodules or components. Also, the information sent between variousmodules can be sent between the modules via at least one of: a datanetwork, the Internet, a voice network, an Internet Protocol network, awireless device, a wired device and/or via plurality of protocols. Also,the messages sent or received by any of the modules may be sent orreceived directly and/or via one or more of the other modules.

While preferred embodiments of the present invention have beendescribed, it is to be understood that the embodiments described areillustrative only and the scope of the invention is to be defined solelyby the appended claims when considered with a full range of equivalentsand modifications (e.g., protocols, hardware devices, software platformsetc.) thereto.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: initiating an applicationon a server that establishes a customized content delivery functionutilized to deliver customized content to each of an identifiedplurality of mobile station devices present at a pre-defined venuelocation; and transmitting the customized content to each of theplurality of mobile station devices responsive to receiving a triggercommand at a predetermined time; wherein the customized content istransmitted such that each screen of the plurality of mobile stationdevices is treated as a single pixel of light in a larger imageresembling a digital monitor; wherein the plurality of mobile stationsare identified by transmitting a request for specific locationinformation to each of the plurality of mobile station devices; whereinthe specific location information comprises at least one of a seatassignment, global positioning system (GPS) coordinates, andtriangulation power estimation signal information.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, comprising receiving and storing the specific locationinformation in an application server database.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the trigger command comprises a plurality of trigger commandsand the predetermined time comprises a plurality of differentpredetermined times, and wherein each of the plurality of triggercommands specifies a corresponding plurality of predetermined times totransmit the customized content to each of the plurality of mobilestation devices.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality ofpredetermined times are different for each of the plurality of mobilestation devices.
 5. The method of claim 3, wherein the customizedcontent delivered to each of the plurality of mobile station devices isdifferent for each of the plurality of mobile station devices.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the predetermined venue location comprises atleast one of a stage hall, a sports arena, a concert hall, and aclassroom.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the customized content istransmitted such that each of the plurality of mobile station devicescollectively form a plurality of images over time that act as a video.8. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting further comprisesdetermining what color should be displayed by each of the plurality ofmobile station devices at a given time.
 9. The method of claim 1,wherein image is mapped onto the plurality of mobile station devicesaccording to their respective locations via a mapping table thatincludes at least one of a mobile station identifier, a mobile stationlocation, an image color at a particular pixel, an image intensity, andan image duration.
 10. An apparatus, comprising: a processor configuredto initiate an application on a server that establishes a customizedcontent delivery function utilized to deliver customized content to eachof an identified plurality of mobile station devices; and a transmitterconfigured to transmit the customized content to each of the pluralityof mobile station devices responsive to a receipt of a trigger commandat a predetermined time; wherein the customized content is transmittedsuch that each screen of the plurality of mobile station devices istreated as a single pixel of light in a larger image resembling adigital monitor; wherein the plurality of mobile stations are identifiedby a request for specific location information transmitted to each ofthe plurality of mobile station devices; wherein the specific locationinformation comprises at least one of a seat assignment, globalpositioning system (GPS) coordinates, and triangulation power estimationsignal information.
 11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein a receiver isconfigured to receive and store the specific location information in anapplication server database.
 12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein thetrigger command comprises a plurality of trigger commands and thepredetermined time comprises a plurality of different predeterminedtimes, and wherein each of the plurality of trigger commands specifies acorresponding plurality of predetermined times to transmit thecustomized content to each of the plurality of mobile station devices.13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the plurality of predeterminedtimes are different for each of the plurality of mobile station devices.14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the customized content deliveredto each of the plurality of mobile station devices is different for eachof the plurality of mobile station devices.
 15. The apparatus of claim10, wherein the predetermined venue location comprises at least one of astage hall, a sports arena, a concert hall, and a classroom.
 16. Anon-transitory computer readable storage medium configured to storeinstructions that, when executed, cause a processor to: initiate anapplication on a server that establishes a customized content deliveryfunction utilized to deliver customized content to each identifiedplurality of mobile station devices; and transmit the customized contentto each of the plurality of mobile station devices responsive toreceiving a trigger command at a predetermined time; wherein thecustomized content is transmitted such that each screen of the pluralityof mobile station devices is treated as a single pixel of light in alarger image resembling a digital monitor; wherein the plurality ofmobile stations are identified by transmitting a request for specificlocation information to each of the plurality of mobile station devices;wherein the specific location information comprises at least one of aseat assignment, global positioning system (GPS) coordinates, andtriangulation power estimation signal information.
 17. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein theprocessor is configured to storing receive and store the specificlocation information in an application server database.
 18. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein thetrigger command comprises a plurality of trigger commands and thepredetermined time comprises a plurality of different predeterminedtimes, and wherein each of the plurality of trigger commands specifies acorresponding plurality of predetermined times to transmit thecustomized content to each of the plurality of mobile station devices.19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18,wherein the plurality of predetermined times are different for each ofthe plurality of mobile station devices.
 20. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the customized contentdelivered to each of the plurality of mobile station devices isdifferent for each of the plurality of mobile station devices.